Our View: District 150 School Board: Laura Petelle

Make no mistake, the District 3 race for District 150 School Board has turned into a referendum on the superintendency of Grenita Lathan, and by extension on the School Board that employs her.

The weirdest School Board race in memory — as well as the most heated contest in this campaign season — pits incumbent Laura Petelle, 35, against Sue Wolstenholm, who dropped out, if too late to get her name off the ballot. A group that coalesced in anger over the actions of Lathan and the board regarding allegations of cheating on standardized tests against a popular principal and teachers at Charter Oak Primary School is running a proxy campaign on Wolstenholm’s behalf, with her blessing. Change 150 is urging a “vote for Sue,” arguing that her victory would send a message regarding their extreme dissatisfaction with the leadership and direction of the district, and give them the leverage necessary to persuade the School Board to appoint someone to their liking. If not, they’ll get another shot at running a candidate — or two — of their choosing next year.

Let us address the Lathan situation first. We do not question this superintendent’s competence. Her communication skills and confrontational style are another matter. Her recent comment that “I don’t believe people want District 150 to succeed” was ill-considered and ill-timed following all the recent controversy. Peoria has its faults, and excessive negativity can be among them, but the comment betrays the bias of a superintendent who in the nearly four years she’s been here, arguably hasn’t gotten to know the community.

If this were a one-time thing, it would be forgivable, but it has become something of a pattern. Another example came in 2012 when Lathan accused her predecessors of “decades of educational malpractice.” From virtually the minute she arrived, she put Peoria on notice that a revolution was coming, and that those who weren’t on board “need to go somewhere else.” She’ll excuse those who read into such comments a belligerence and disdain, and who unsurprisingly respond in kind. Evidently the doctorate Lathan earned didn’t include a course in Communications 101 along the way. Indeed, there’s a difference between blunt — Petelle calls it “abrupt” — and bludgeoning, and effective leaders know the difference because they recognize that they can’t do it alone, that they need buy-in and help from others to succeed. This superintendent doesn't have to be in the business of winning friends but she does have to influence people, and this wasn’t leadership.

Her supporters, including those on the School Board, tend to wave that off by saying she was given a mandate for change and that always ruffles feathers. So it does. But consistently reckless and counterproductive rhetoric gets in the way of change for the better, and can stop it altogether. Is it a fatal flaw? Can Lathan survive it? We don’t know. But if that situation and this relationship don't improve dramatically in the coming months, the board can no longer ignore it, as it imperils everything they’re trying to accomplish.

Page 2 of 2 - As for Petelle, an attorney in private life, we don’t believe she’s the problem here. She may be the most accessible and responsive member of this board, even if she doesn’t always tell others what they want to hear. Though the board was unanimous on the Charter Oak saga — “This was not a close issue,” she says — we would not characterize her as a rubber stamp for the administration. She’s as knowledgeable as anybody there.

She expresses pride/confidence in the district’s fiscal discipline and much more stable budget, in the curriculum building blocks put in place to boost achievement, in the lengthening of the school day, in the expansion of gifted education, in superior early childhood and special ed programs. District 150’s best students stack up with anybody in this region. Unfortunately, it’s also true that far too many Peoria students are not measuring up, that the disruptive among them and what to do with them remain a major challenge. Fundamentally that’s “a poverty problem,” beyond the ability of District 150 alone to conquer, she says. Beyond that, keeping the Peoria Stadium property green space is a priority for Petelle, who is leaning toward on-site game facilities at all of the high schools.

Of course, none of that may matter to those who’ve made up their minds and just want Petelle — and the rest of the board — gone.

The lobbying has been fairly intense here to do an anybody-but-Petelle endorsement, or not to endorse anyone because, as one Change 150 representative acknowledged, their “Vote for Sue” crusade “is, in essence, a protest campaign to elect a ghost candidate with a ‘wait-and-see’ clause.” To which we would say: Exactly.

It makes little sense to us to encourage a vote for someone who doesn’t want the job, whom we know virtually nothing about, even for symbolic purposes. If Petelle has to go because she’s a member of a board that is no longer deserving of the public’s trust, well, that same untrustworthy School Board is going to appoint her successor — or potentially Petelle herself — in the event she loses. We dislike non-endorsements, which we’ve always viewed as something of a cop-out.

Change 150 is passionate, organized, disciplined and relatively savvy, and may pull this off — and they’re right, five-year board terms are too long — but ultimately we see only one choice here, and we don’t think it’s a bad one: Laura Petelle is endorsed.